ART CENTER AHJO, KYTÖ/LIEKKI SPACE; EEVA HUOTARI - BURNED TO THE BOTTOM

EEVA HUOTARI - BURNED TO THE BOTTOM 27.5.-14.6.2025

The works in the exhibition explore burnout, exhaustion, and emotional fatigue. The exhibition
is built around animated installations based on printmaking, where images merge into
immersive spatial experiences. In the exhibition artprints come alive.

– In my works, I deal with anxiety, exhaustion, and burnout. I read about a study on fish that,
when depressed, sink to the bottom and no longer rise again, even when conditions improve.
In the same way, a person can remain stuck in the mud at the bottom, even when everything
appears to be fine.

One of the works in the exhibition is an anxious perch that has grown arms and legs — and
been forced out of its natural element. It is a visual metaphor for a person who can no longer
breathe when their environment or circumstances become suffocating.

Huotari works with both traditional and contemporary printmaking methods.She creates the
printing plates by hand, continues the process digitally, and transforms the prints into
animations — much like the short moving images created in the early days of cinema.

An antwoman walks in circles, a woman turns restlessly in her bed, wraps herself in a blanket,
and cocoons herself. Everything feels chaotic, yet somehow still makes sense. But what happens
if one stops — does one then burn to the bottom?

Eeva Huotari (b. 1976) is a printmaker and visual artist (Master of Culture and Arts) based in
Kokkola, Finland. She works within the field of expanded printmaking and teaches
printmaking at the Kokkola Region Institute. The works in the exhibition have been supported
by the Central Ostrobothnia Regional Fund of the Finnish Cultural Foundation.